Why Sarah Polley is the perfect choice to write and direct the next big John Green adaptation

Unsurprisingly, after the success of The Fault in Our Stars, Hollywood is clamoring for more movies based on John Green’s novels. An adaptation of Paper Towns is already in the works (with TFIOS star Nat Wolff) and now another has just taken a big leap forward.

Green announced on Twitter that Sarah Polley, an indie writer/director best known for last year’s Stories We Tell, will write and direct the adaptation of Looking for Alaska.

So excited to announce that the brilliant filmmaker Sarah Polley will be writing and directing a film adaptation of Looking for Alaska.

She knows how to tell heartbreaking stories

Roadside Attractions

It’s hard to talk about Alaska without spoiling it, but it’s a John Green novel, so you basically know what you’re in for, and that’s a lot of capital-E Emotions. Polley is no stranger to this kind of movie. Her documentary Stories We Tell dug into the painful memories and secrets in her own family. A group of fictional teens at a boarding school should be no problem for her. Plus Stories We Tell is just a phenomenal movie. Even Green thinks so.

Apropos of no news whatsoever, have you guys seen Sarah Polley's amazing documentary STORIES WE TELL? Fascinating, funny, and so smart.

She’s played a troubled teen before

First Line Features

Alaska is pretty unapologetic when it comes to the portrayal of sex, alcohol and drug use among teens (we had our doubts about this adaptation ever happening, if only because these teen characters are smoking cigarettes for basically the entire book). Polley shouldn’t have any trouble with all those or any other aspect of teen life. In her days as an actress she played a paralyzed teen in The Sweet Hereafter.

‘TFIOS’ was helmed by an indie director, too

(James Bridges, 20th Century Fox)

And look how well that turned out. Josh Boone brought a lot of subtlety to TFIOS, in addition to being incredibly faithful to the books. As far as we’re concerned, Polley has got this in the bag.